


Maybe This Time

by Ultra



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Endgame Garcia Flynn/Lucy Preston, F/M, First Kiss, Fix-It of Sorts, Garcia Flynn/Lucy Preston-centric, Getting Together, Guilt, Love, Minor Rufus Carlin/Jiya, Not Canon Compliant - s02e11-12 The Miracle of Christmas (Timeless), One Shot, Post-Series Pre-Movie, Rufus Carlin Lives, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:34:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27900841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/pseuds/Ultra
Summary: Lucy is not prepared to lose Garcia Flynn from her life, no matter what he thinks about it.
Relationships: Garcia Flynn/Lucy Preston, Rufus Carlin & Garcia Flynn
Comments: 10
Kudos: 38
Collections: Timeless Secret Santa Fic Exchange 2020





	Maybe This Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [princessamerigo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessamerigo/gifts).



> princessamerigo - you were quite non-specific in your Garcy Secret Santa sign-up about what kind of gift you wanted. I do hope this is to your liking :)

She had considered knocking before she let herself in, but then Lucy thought better of it. After all, Flynn had told her she was always welcome, day or night, and nobody in the bunker ever bothered to lock their doors anyway.

Taking a deep breath, Lucy pushed forward and walked into the room, feeling somewhat deflated when she found nobody there. She turned back towards the door, meaning to leave again, only to knock some papers flying from the bed to the floor where they scattered quite spectacularly.

Lucy muttered a couple of curse words and stooped to retrieve the papers, not really meaning to study them in any way, but unable to help herself somehow. By the time she looked up again and saw Flynn framed in the doorway, Lucy knew she was frowning in confusion.

“Ah,” said Flynn, looking awkward. “I wasn’t going to say anything until I had the details figured out.”

Lucy shook her head. “This looks pretty detailed as it is,” she noted, eyes reviewing the notes written in his own hand. “Don’t take this the wrong way but it never really occurred to me you’d be so desperate to save Rufus.”

When his eyes dipped to the floor, Lucy felt awful. To imply Flynn didn’t care about the team, after all they had shared, she knew better than that. Still, she had to admit that Rufus was far from Flynn’s biggest fan and had just assumed the reverse was also true. Maybe she was wrong.

“I think I have more than a little atoning to do where Rufus is concerned,” he said, suddenly much closer to Lucy. “Jiya too. I don’t even know if any of this would really work,” he said then, gesturing to the plans she held in her hands yet. “I was just thinking, well, the new and improved Lifeboat doesn’t actually need a pilot, so...”

“That might be true.” Lucy shook her head. “But what you have here, taking out Emma and Jessica, the multiple jumps in our own timeline, you saw what that did to... to _her_ ,” she said awkwardly of her supposed future self, feeling strange just mentioning the interaction from the day before at all. “Flynn, I do see how this could work, how it could save Rufus and have you both return safely, but... but there’s also every chance you could literally die trying.”

When she looked at him then, he only shrugged his broad shoulders as he sat down on the edge of the bed.

“That’s a risk I’d be willing to take,” he told her easily, as if it was nothing at all. “After all, if anyone should... You know as well as I do, it should’ve been me.”

Lucy’s eyes closed of their own accord at the sound of those words, the pain of them hitting her, almost too much to bear.

“Don’t say that,” she told him, once again meeting his gaze. “Please, don’t.”

“Come on, Lucy,” he said with a sigh, glancing away and making a big deal of adjusting a pile of books on the nightstand that really didn’t need any help. “You had your perfect little Time Team long before I came along. You’d do just fine without me.”

“Stop it!” Her hand was as quick and sharp as her words, shooting out to still his movement, to get his full attention back on her. “Flynn, how can you...? After everything we’ve been through, everything you told me about the journal and, and us being a team, and... _everything_ ,” she said desperately, hating the shake in her voice and new tears in her eyes when she had been sure she was too cried out to make any more. “How could you say that we... that _I_ would be better off without you?”

For what it was worth, he did look sorry, and strangely sort of hopeful, Lucy thought. As if she didn’t know what that meant. As if she could ever doubt how much he cared about her, and wondered at his not realising just how much she cared for him too.

“Lucy...”

The way he said her name, it was something to savour and always had been, but in this moment she didn’t need anymore, no more words, in any case. Pushing forward, she threw her arms around his neck, crushing her lips against his own. It was a brief moment, not least because it made her split lip hurt like hell. Besides, she knew she had shocked Flynn and frankly wasn’t prepared to give him chance to recover and actually respond right now. It shouldn’t be like this, not with the two of them.

Backing up fast until her legs hit the other bunk, Lucy’s hand went to her lip and came away bloody. Pulling tissue from her pocket, she cleaned herself up, unable to miss the fact that Flynn had got up to follow her. She threw out her free hand to keep him at bay, promising she was fine when he looked so very worried about her.

“You know, we were interrupted before, in Chinatown,” she reminded him, knowing that was really where this conversation ought to start, picking up from that moment that she had been so sorry to lose. “You never answered my question. Why are you here?”

Tilting her head right back so she could meet his eyes, she searched for the truth she hoped she already knew, but that he never quite seemed willing to confirm. Maybe he would’ve done so, in the photography store, if only they hadn’t been interrupted. This time, there was no-one to cut in on their conversation. This time, she hoped she had made it clear that he didn’t have to be scared of what came next.

She watched Flynn struggle a moment, his head moving almost imperceptibly from side to side. Then his hand came up, tentatively reaching to cup her cheek, his thumb gently at her lip that had barely stopped bleeding. With a sigh, he finally made his confession.

“If you don’t know by now what you mean to me, Lucy-”

“If I mean that much,” she cut in, the moment he got that far, “how can you say I’d be better off without you?”

Caught out and knowing it, a smirk pulled at Flynn’s lips. Hadn’t he told her once they were both geniuses? He ought to have known she would use anything she could to her advantage here, anything to keep him from doing something reckless. Maybe she really hadn’t made that clear enough yet, but she would. After they figured out what to do about Rufus, of course.

“Rufus was your friend,” Flynn reminded her, as if he really needed to. “Also, Jiya’s lover, and a pilot for the time machine. He matters more.”

“ _Everybody_ matters,” Lucy told him firmly, gaze fixed on his own as her hand came up to cover his own at her cheek. “You told me once we could save the ones we love. I know it’s probably too late for... for the people we were closest to, that we lost too long ago,” she said, feeling the pain of Amy’s loss even now, knowing his heart still broke a little for Lorena and Iris every day, as it should. “But if we could save Rufus... You have this plan,” she said, gesturing past him to the papers abandoned on the bed when she kissed him. “Is it...? Are we talking about a real, solid plan that’ll actually work?”

“Maybe,” Flynn confessed. “It’s time travel, Lucy, and it’s Rittenhouse, and, and going back into places and times that we’ve already been,” he summarised, looking awkward about it even now, “but yes, I have a plan.”

Taking a deep breath, Lucy let it out slow and then nodded her head firmly.

“Then let’s do this. You and me. Let’s save Rufus.”

* * *

To his dying day, whenever that might end up being, Garcia Flynn would never be entirely sure how they pulled it off. Though he had long ago discovered that he and Lucy were destined to become quite the team, he had never envisaged something quite as complex and heroic as the events of today.

Not that it all really happened on any one day, not with the way they had gone flitting through time, just the two of them, in the upgraded time machine that was so easily programmable a child could do it. It had been close a few times, but in the end, they had been successful. The plan had not failed. The team of Preston and Flynn had won the day, and Rufus was home, alive and well.

The joy on Lucy’s face was prize enough for Flynn, though he had to admit, seeing Rufus and Jiya in each other’s arms, the two of them so overjoyed to be together, that was pretty special too.

Not that he would ever tell them, but Flynn had quite the soft spot for the two little nerds. They were good people, after all, and they had been through so much in all this time travel crap. If anyone deserved the fairytale ending when it was all over, it would be them.

“I guess now that you saved my life,” said Rufus then as he faced his enemy-turned-saviour, “I’m going to have to start liking you or something,” he told him with a terrible smirk, before offering a hand for shaking. “Seriously, Flynn. Thank you.”

“I think I more than owed you this one,” said Flynn in a low voice, knowing there was no way to joke his way out of this particularly awkward emotional moment.

It was a relief when Rufus just let it go, moving over to Lucy and thanking her just as sincerely for her part in the rescue, hugging her so hard she swore he was going to break ribs.

“But it is so wonderful to have you home,” she declared, hugging him back.

When everyone else was finally gone to their own private corners of the bunker, Flynn turned to look at Lucy, catching her wiping happy tears from under her eyes.

“We saved him,” she said, with no small amount of wonder in her voice. “I almost can’t believe it. Please, tell me I’m not going to wake up and find this is all some amazing dream?”

“You think we’d still be in this bunker if it were a dream?” Flynn asked her with a smirk. “Unless, you know, you have very weird hopes for the future.”

She laughed at the stupid joke, which had been his intention. Anything to make her smile. Absolutely anything. He hoped he had proven that, even if that wasn’t the entire point of the trip. He really had wanted to save Rufus too, for so very many reasons.

“What we did, Flynn,” said Lucy then, her hand on his arm, “what _you_ did...”

“It wasn’t much,” he told her with a shrug, “but I hope it makes up a little for other things I have done. To Rufus. To you.”

The last words were never supposed to come out so quietly, but frankly, it hurt just to consider any of the things he did to hurt her, in what sometimes seemed like another lifetime. With all the time travel, maybe that was what it had become now. Flynn wasn’t sure he could wrap his head around it, even if he wanted to, especially not now, when Lucy was looking at him like that.

“That’s all in the past,” she told him seriously, before a wry smile broke through. “In every possible way,” she added, moving in a little closer. “You know, you always said we’d make quite the team someday.”

“Now do you believe me?” Flynn asked.

“I do.” Lucy nodded without pause. “I have for a long time. It’s how I knew this plan had to work. There’s no way I would’ve given you my journal, had you do all those things that you did, if it was going to end so badly, right?”

Flynn shook his head, wishing he had a better answer for her, or any answer at all. “Time travel logic always gives me a headache,” he confessed at last.

Lucy smiled widely. “Aww, poor baby,” she teased him, reaching up to pet his hair, seeming to realise too late how close they had gotten, what she was doing to him. “Flynn... Garcia...” she started to say, but quite honestly, he couldn’t bear to hear an apology or any kind of regret, not now.

“Lucy, please,” he urged her. “If this is just...”

Before he could say more, she had pushed herself up onto her toes, her lips finding his own, one more time. This time, she didn’t back off quickly. This time, he didn’t want to let her. His arms wrapped around her body and held her close as he kissed her back with everything he had to give, and she clung to him just the same.

They were both breathless and gasping when they parted, though parted was probably a poor choice of words, given how close they remained, his forehead pressed against her own.

“I don’t know anything for sure,” Lucy confessed softly, “except that the only time I feel truly happy, truly safe, is when I’m with you. That has to mean something, right?”

Not trusting his voice, Flynn only made a sound of agreement and dared to kiss her again. Lucy didn’t seem to mind at all, at least, not at first. When she suddenly pulled away, he was a little worried, but soon realised his mistake as she took a hold of his hand, took two steps and looked back over her shoulder, shooting him an almost mischievous look.

“I’m a little tired. Are you coming to bed, Garcia?” she asked, biting her lip as she waited for his answer.

He did not need to be asked that question twice and followed her willingly into the bedroom, into their shared future, and whatever life threw at them next. At least, whatever happened, it seemed they were going to be facing it together.


End file.
